


Love and War

by imaginary_golux



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-06
Updated: 2011-07-06
Packaged: 2017-10-21 02:50:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/220062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aphrodite ponders her husband and her lover.  Written for Porn Battle X.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love and War

Aphrodite is not a complete airhead. She understands why Zeus married her to Hephaestus, sooty Hephaestus, Hephaestus without any ambition at all, Hephaestus who could never be talked into challenging Zeus, even by the most beautiful goddess ever. She even loves her crippled husband, in a casual sort of way. She is the goddess of love, after all. She understands Zeus's decision - that does not mean she likes it.

Hephaestus was a logical choice for Aphrodite's husband, given that Zeus did not want the gods to fight over her, nor her husband to rebel. But Aphrodite had her eye on someone else entirely: Ares, the war god. Aphrodite's predecessor Ishtar was a goddess of love and war, after all; why should Aphrodite not emulate her? Ares is handsome and stupid and malleable, and could have been made to follow Aphrodite's slightest whims with ease.

Nevertheless, she is married to Hephaestus, so she makes the best of it. She sleeps with her crippled husband once in a while, to keep him happy or to repay him for the priceless jewelry he crafts for her, and the rest of the time, she amuses herself with beautiful, doomed mortal lads, or - by preference - handsome, arrogant, stupid Ares.

She flatters him, of course, assuring him that he is strong and brave, and that had she had her own choice she would have married him, and all of this is true. She flatters him, too, that he is far, far better in bed than her crippled husband is, but this is, rather to her own surprise, false. Ares is brusque and forceful even in bed, occupied with his own pleasure and not with hers, content to roll over and fall asleep as soon as he has spent himself within her. Crippled Hephaestus, knowing he is not as desirable, exerts himself to his utmost to see that she is pleased, not even daring to enter her until she has spent herself two or three times upon his fingers or his tongue. She rather likes bedding Hephaestus, as long as she keeps her eyes closed - but of course she never tells Ares that. Instead, she pets and makes much of him, telling him he is everything any woman could ever want in a man.

Ares's hands are as hard as Hephaestus's are, though from weapons, not from tools; he comes to her bed reeking of blood and other, unmentionable things, and falls upon her hungrily, aroused by killing. So typical of a man, she thinks, and spreads her legs for him, because she is the goddess of carnal love, and this is a simple thing to give the god who gives her victories. She cannot help thinking of Hephaestus, who washes himself carefully before he dares enter her bedchamber, and takes pains to anoint himself with scents he knows please her. But Hephaestus will not bring her power, only gold; and so she spreads her legs for Ares, and tells him he is wonderful, and that she loves him dearly. It is even mostly true: she is the goddess of love, after all.


End file.
